Orwellian term 'hate crime' a nebulous label

OK, let's try it again. This time, I'll enlist the aid of the brilliant creators of "South Park."

In a 2000 episode, a judge sentencing Cartman for a hate crime explains, "I am making an example out of you, to send a message to people everywhere: If you want to hurt another human being — you better make damn sure they're the same color as you are."

In the wake of anger over the Zimmerman acquittal and the misguided push to prosecute the killing as a hate crime, it's time for another look at the issue, especially as my last column on the subject attracted many comments and phone calls, with readers almost universal in their opinion that I'm a dolt, because I criticized police for charging a local juvenile with a hate crime.

Last week, police added the charge in the case of a 16-year-old teen who allegedly attacked a 19-year-old white teen and stabbed him with a knife. Before the fight, the 16-year-old said, "Hey, white boy, don't bounce your ball," according to police.

Hence, hate crime.

Many critics claimed that I'd have no problem with the charge if the victim was black. Not true. I'm no fan of Orwellian hate crime legislation because it tends to politicize criminal cases, it's sanctimonious, and it punishes people for their thoughts. Think about this: In America, we have the legal right to speak our mind regardless of whether our minds are filled with bigotry or venom. Yet hate crimes punish people for thinking hateful things if you commit a crime while you're thinking them.

And I don't believe that crimes committed due to racism or homophobia should be punished more severely than identical crimes committed for different reasons. Why, for example, is racism worse than pedophilia? Other than making us feel good, hate crime laws create a special class of criminals who are more guilty than others, due to what the government determines they were thinking.

The victim of the Worcester assault, who asked that his name not be used, was treated at a local hospital and released. Last week, I asked if he believed he was victimized because he was white.

"I don't know," he said. "I was singled out because I was bouncing a basketball. ... But probably it was a racial thing. This isn't the first time I've been singled out because I'm white. In my neighborhood, I'm the minority. I get dirty looks. Everyone makes it like the blacks and Puerto Ricans have it the worst. But they get special treatment for no reason."

We'll stop there. Obviously, there's a race problem in America, and people of different colors can see things differently. On the national stage, many black people — and whites as well — believe Zimmerman stalked and murdered a black kid. Now the NAACP is pushing the attorney general to prosecute this weird wannabe cop for a civil rights violation; in other words, a hate crime.

That would be wrong on many levels. For starters, a defendant's guilt or innocence isn't decided by popular opinion, petition or people's perceptions, but by evidence presented in a courtroom. In the Zimmerman case, we'll likely never know what happened in the final key minutes, and prosecutors couldn't get past the high bar of reasonable doubt. Should Zimmerman have followed Trayvon Martin? No. Is it possible that Martin attacked Zimmerman? Of course. The jury did its job, and we must move on.

The last thing we need in an already divided America is the existence of a special class of victims dubbed in more need of protection than others. Our legal system shouldn't be in the business of criminalizing thought; as evidenced by the last couple of weeks, it already has enough on its plate.